Not Human
by RoswellianMisha
Summary: What do you think when you see your hero falling from the sky? How can you help him when you realize he’s coming to your hospital? From a Doc’s POV. Chapter 2 is from a Nurse's POV.
1. Not Human

Author: RoswellianMisha

Disclaimer: All these characters belong to someone else, of which I know DC Comics and Warner Brothers, but I'm sure there are more people involved… and that certainly does not include me. I just write for fun :)

Summary: What do you think when you see your hero falling from the sky? How can you help him when you realize he's coming to your hospital? From a doctor's POV. One-shot fic.

AN: This is a repost of the story, I edited it a bit and got rid of two or three grammar mistakes. Thank you so much to everyone who left a review! Thanks to Josh and Sarah for beta-ing for me! You guys are the bestest ;)

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**Not Human**

It is then that I notice the silence. I'm not sure if it is really that everything and everyone has just stopped and hushed up, or if it is only me who can no longer hear anything. It doesn't matter. Because all my attention is pinned on that small, _smalll_ dot falling through the air. Just falling.

It seems like the dot has been falling forever, and that I have watched that dot falling forever as well. Until he's no longer in my sight. Because now he's not falling anymore, though from where I am, standing on the second floor, he would be just a dot if I could see him still.

But he has fallen in the park, barely three blocks away. And everything is still oddly silent, I absently notice, because we are all waiting. Waiting for him to rise once again and so we would see him flying, upward, unharmed… That's what we are all waiting for, yeah. But as the seconds pass and he's not emerging from the top of the trees, a cold realization starts to prick at the back of my mind. What if he's _not_ going to fly upward this time?

The idea is stupid. He's invulnerable, isn't he? For all that I have read, or heard, or seen, everyone just _knows_ he's invulnerable. Nothing can really harm him, except for Kryptonite, whatever that looks like. But the idea just won't go away. And suddenly I realize that the silence is not so quiet anymore either. Whispers start to filter in through my own thoughts, until someone finally says out loud what I have been thinking for the past three seconds: Something's wrong with him.

No. That's absurd. My mind can't get around the fact that he's not flying upward yet, so the idea that something is wrong with him is just, well… _wrong._ Maybe he won't fly away because maybe he's a little shaken up. Maybe he needs to take a second to take air. Heck, maybe he'll even walk.

My mind starts coming up with all these ideas of why he's not flying and yet he's unharmed. Down on the street I can see people moving, first walking and then running towards the park. And it all strikes me as very odd. He's the one who comes to our aid, not the other way around. And that's the first time that I actually allow myself to think that something _is_ wrong with him.

So the scenes in my mind change. Okay, so maybe he's not exactly _completely_ okay. Maybe, for some unknown reason, he did sort of faint. It would explain why he was falling to begin with. Because really, he never falls. But whatever it was, it's all right now. He'll wake up, a little disoriented maybe, and he… well, my eyes keep searching over the tree line because he _will_ fly upwards any second now.

I realize too that I'm the only one who hasn't moved or said anything since we all stopped looking at the news and turned to look out of the window to watch him fall. Everyone is talking now –no more whispering- and openly expressing their concerns.

The doctor in me keeps coming up with elaborate scenarios. Maybe when he fell the air was knocked from his lungs and he's now just… recovering. Maybe that was the equivalent to fall on your back when someone pushes you. And since he's invulnerable, he's just fine. Maybe he's just exhausted…

When the first call comes in asking for an ambulance, my mind processes the information as if the ambulance was going to take a victim. Which is perfectly understandable since that's what ambulances do all the time here and at any other hospital in the world. We are in the middle of a crisis right now, with the recent earthquake after all. I keep looking at the top of the trees, but my eyes are caught by the movement out there, below me. The news is spreading faster than he can fly, that's for sure, and by the grim, scared, and astonished looks on the people's faces, I know it's not good news.

That's when my heart sinks. That's when my eyes return in a second to the spot above the trees but my mind knows I won't see him flying upwards again.

I faintly hear how the phones ring and ring and Susset answers saying that the ambulance is on its way. O_n its way_. I suddenly realize what the ringing is all about and _who_ the ambulance is going to get. Our hero has suddenly become a victim. It freezes me right to the bottom of my soul. And just as I'm feeling my heart beat on my ears, I _know_ exactly where that ambulance is going to take him.

Here.

I leave the window with the view to the park and turn to face my staff. They all already know what I have just come to terms with, and they are all expectantly looking at me. I'm in charge here. And for the first time in my life I wish I wasn't.

I faintly listen to the paramedics' voices through the speakers saying that he's not breathing. My mind races through a dozen different reasons why he's not breathing and how can we help him. But of course, all those dozen different ways are _human_ ways. As I get to the first floor, for the first time in my life too, I truly realize that he really isn't human.

I see the same realization hit my medical staff as we are moving as one to the front doors. He's _not_ human. How can we help him then? What are we going to face? What if we are not capable enough?

As the ambulance stops in front of us, I desperately want to push all these doubts away. To at least keep them quiet as I do what I do best in this world: Help people. But all thoughts collide as the blue and the red flash in front of my eyes. For all I have read, and heard, and seen about anything during my entire life, nothing could have prepared me for that. For the helpless feeling I get of seeing him on a stretcher, coming out of an ambulance. All sounds go away as before, except that part of me is aware that there are thousands of people surrounding us.

The next ten seconds are just accomplished automatically. I can almost see myself from above, efficiently and effectively asserting the situation. We all fall into that mode. We all start doing what routine, practice and knowledge has taught us for years now. We all start treating him as if he were human.

Yet, the instant I touch his hand, this second self of mine, the one who has been watching all this from above, comes down to my body with shocking speed. He's so cold. I remember a patient telling me that she had been saved by him once, and as I'm searching for a pulse –or any kind of vital sign- I can recall every word she had said about how warm he was. Not only his personality, but his body as well. And I wonder how exactly _warm_ defines ones temperature? Whatever it is, his temperature is not right.

Is he bleeding? Is he injured in any way? The dark red cape doesn't let us see if there's any blood, and his tight suit does not allows us to examine him properly. I keep running along the stretcher on pure adrenaline. Why is he unconscious? Why is he not breathing?

As the stretcher comes to a halt, he's stripped away of his clothes, as we do every day on every patient. But somehow, this is different. This makes him _vulnerable._ His flesh is unblemished, his abs as well formed as his suit had let seen a second ago. He's so human, I think, and I know we are all thinking the same thing as well.

The first thing I do is search for a wound. Any kind of wound. And to my surprise, I find one. All my fear to the unknown, to failure, to not knowing how to deal with this entire situation disappears as the doctor in me takes full control. A stab wound. I have seen hundreds of stab wounds. A stab wound on the lower back. And as I take a closer look to it, I can't help but think that his blood is just as red as ours, acknowledging the fact that he's an alien.

I push the thought aside, and concentrate on what's important. What has been damage? The liver? Main arteries? The lung?

It all is meaningless, I realize a second later, when I glance as the nurse is trying to insert a needle for the IV. It can't get through, because he's invulnerable. Because he's not human. Is there a liver? A lung? Where do his arteries run? Into a heart? I can clearly see his veins and arteries on his arms –unreachable, invulnerable to our attempts- so I shake my thoughts. Whatever has been able to penetrate that skin, it might still be inside of him.

The sound of the flat lines on the monitors are barely distracting. I _have_ to remove whatever has injured him. Is this the reason why he fell? And once it's out, would I be able to repair the damage inside? I close in on something solid, and as I pull it out, seeing its green light, I can only think of it as poison. He has been poisoned. Is this the Kryptonite I've read about before but never seen?

Someone says "clear" and I immediately move out. And it all just goes wrong, because obviously his body does not canalize electroshocks as ours do. The lines continue flat as I deposit that green poisonous fragment on a container and return to finish the job. To see if there's still more.

Everyone is panicking around me. How long has he been without air? How long has his heart been stopped? How long should we fight for his life before knowing there's no coming back? How much, indeed, is he really like us?

I keep searching for more fragments as I listen whispers about if we are looking for the right vital signs on the right places. Can our monitors really pick them out? All we seem to be able to do is give him oxygen. That and knowing for sure his wound is clean. But there, I find one final fragment, though for some reason there's no hemorrhage.

I get it out and it all is as if I had electro shocked him. His heart starts beating on its own and life returns to all of us as he starts breathing too. Uncertain hands find things to do, meaningful things to do, now that we have the hope that he's coming back.

Except that he isn't. The monitors do not get above 40 beats per minute, and everything else stays pretty much flat. His skin is not cold anymore, but not exactly _warm_ either. What? I didn't get it all? Has this poison got into his bloodstream? And if so, how are we going to get it out?

I desperately search his face for signs that he's coming around regardless of what the monitors indicate. How can we be measuring his vital signs as if he were human? Why do we know that 40 beats it's too slow? I don't know how, but we _know_ it is too slow.

And all we can do now is hope he can fight as hard inside of himself as he does for the rest of us. That he will find his way back. That he will stay with us this time around. Because biology aside, he's the best human being we all can hope to be someday.

The End.


	2. Waiting

AN: This is told from a Nurse's perspective when she enters Superman's room. It's more slow-paced than the first one, though.

Special thanks to** Saavikam** for her wonderful beta skills!! You rock girl!

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**Waiting**

It's the eerie silence that sends chills down my spine, the silence and the stillness of the room. Nothing is rushed here. Nothing seems to move at all. Almost as if time itself has stopped. It's as if the whole world is holding its breath, waiting. Just _waiting. _

I half consciously step in trying to make no sound myself, as if the slightest noise is somehow disturbing. And as surreal as this whole thing is, I can't help thinking for a moment that, of all the places I ever thought I might see him, _this_ was not in that list.

The guards outside are silent and always standing straight, having such a solemn stance that I can almost believe they are statues except for the brief, hopeful smiles they give me on my way here. They are waiting, I know, waiting like the rest of the world for good news. _I'm_ waiting for good news as well.

That's why entering to his room sends chills down my spine; because standing here I'm faced with the very hard possibility that the news might not be good.

I catch myself thinking how this whole thing is different, so much different, than anything any of us has ever experienced, and it almost frightens me. I feel paralyzed for a fraction of a second at the thought that I don't know what I can do. I shake the feeling off though. I can't let it take over me. And so I approach his sleeping figure, effectively breaking the frozen feeling, and I concentrate on doing what I do know. On keeping things on a level that I can manage.

It's not the first time I'm in his room, for all the 18 hours he's been here, but I seem to always marvel at the same facts: how human he looks, yet how many things are so unique to him, tell tale signs that something is off. Not just the medical inconsistencies like a stab wound that doesn't bleed or that can't get infected, just like the fever that never came. It's other things, mundane things that I notice. Things like he doesn't seem to need to be shaved, or even to be combed; there's not one fallen strand of hair on his pillow, not even a tan line on his wrists.

Tell tale signs of a life so different from ours. Differences that everyone wonders at some point or another, especially these days, when every turn I take leads to some news relating to him. It makes me wonder if he sees the world the same way I do. If he enjoys a long walk after a stressful day, or if he has a favorite spot on Earth. If he sings along to songs on the radio and if he wakes up late on Sundays.

I wonder if he dreams of flying.

I –quietly- laugh at my musings as I check that the monitors are working properly. Still, I can't stop thinking that there's so much we don't know about him, really, that my smile fades away rather quickly. How can we help him when we are in the dark?

We're trying though. We are really trying. Everyone is pulling double shifts attending to the huge number of patients that yesterday's earthquake left. We're not enough, and we are always busy, yet our thoughts seem to drift one way or another to our most challenging patient. The one we can't really help, I sadly realize.

Doctors whisper back and forth in closed rooms and in not so closed hallways. As the hours go by, and he's not regaining consciousness, those whispers have been growing, getting louder. Anxiety runs through the specialists' faces who are waiting –like everyone else- for a change.

Not that we nurses haven't been paying attention. We would need to be deaf not to hear them half of the time, to tell the truth. Should he be exposed to sunlight or is his body too exhausted to absorb the sun's energy right now? Does he need to eat if he can't absorb the sun's rays, then? Maybe his body is in some sort of stasis, reducing everything vital to the minimum. Maybe all this is just a natural state for him in order to recover. Maybe this, maybe that. The more I listen, the more I don't want to, and the sense of helplessness that I feel is spreading through all of us like a dark cloud.

The one thing everyone seems to agree on, though, is that he's stable right now, under these conditions, so we're not altering anything about them. Same light, same position, same room, same everything. And so, all that is left to do is to keep waiting.

I take his pulse and marvel at how human his flesh feels like. A needle might not get through it, but I hope he can sense my touch. The burning marks on his hand have almost faded away, and that gives us hope that he's getting better. Slowly, yes, but steadily as well, just like his heart beat that hasn't changed since yesterday.

With no IV's to change, nothing to dispose of, not even hair to comb, I just stare at him for a long moment. This instant seems to stretch on forever as I think about what I know about him. He left more than five years ago. He came back less than five days ago. Why is he in a hospital bed under my care, then? Superheroes are not supposed to fall. Superheroes are not supposed to be _vulnerable_.

Superheroes are not supposed to be like us.

I want to say something, but I don't know what. I've been around plenty of comatose patients, so I'm no stranger to this situation but… it's as if I am afraid to say the wrong thing, something that would upset him. And it's not only me who's like that. That's why he's been placed here to begin with, away from prying eyes and loud noises and all the mayhem a hospital usually is. The brand new wing on the fifth floor; the one that wasn't going to be really used until next month. No patients here, no rush, no sounds. Just him.

I suspect that's why doctors and specialists alike lock themselves as far away from here as they can. They don't want him to know how scared they really are.

Which is an interesting contrast with the people outside, I reflect as I look at the window. They all keep vigil, hopeful, waiting for some news and wanting him to know how much we care for him. How important he really is to our lives. There's no hiding or locking away those feelings, and I hope he can hear them. I hope he knows someone cares. A lot of _someones_ by the looks of it.

Everyone wants to be here, so I wonder how come I'm the one actually standing beside him, tongue-tied, as I watch his chest slightly rising and falling. I'm the wrong person to be here, period. Someone like Charlotte should be here, an ER nurse who's always got something to say. I laugh –quietly again- at the picture of the 37-year-old black, big woman telling him one or two things about responsibilities.

"_You went away for five goddamn years and now you're back, so get that cute butt of yours out of that bed, get the hell out of here, and go save some lives!"_

She said as much this morning when I went downstairs to help the ER staff. Right before I was told I was going to take care of him, actually.

I flinch. If he _can_ hear right now, then he has heard Charlotte's not so quiet voice for sure.

It isn't fair though, that we expect him to be on guard 24/7. It's no life for anyone, especially when it involves deciding who you save and who you don't. But as my eyes turn once more to the window, I think that what isn't fair is that no one is really here. No visitors are allowed, of course, but I somehow feel like the doctors and we nurses are not exactly what he would like to have by his side.

How ironic would it be that the one being that proved to us that we're not alone in the universe, could be the loneliest of us all? No, I won't have it. I can't allow my mind to think he can feel that way. He's got the whole world around him, doesn't he?

Doesn't he?

How empty the world suddenly feels to me. We are a sea of strangers to him, so why does he help us then? Why does he risk so much when he's so different? When he's not one of us?

I stare at his still face and I wonder how his life really is for the millionth time. He must have friends, I realize suddenly, people close to him, people he cares about in a personal way. People who can't be here because no one's allowed. Because no one here knows. And though for one more moment the idea that he's actually completely alone in this world intrudes my mind, I refuse it. Someone like him cannot be alone. He's got too much to give. He cares _too_ much to not have someone.

I can't be sure, really, but it strikes me that I'm right, that he cares about the world because he cares about people close to him. That he wants us to be safe because those very same people are part of us. Those who make him _want_ to stay, want to help… Maybe that's exactly what he needs to hear to wake up then: what he's leaving behind.

So I smile at him, aware that he can't see me, though I hope he can _feel_ me, and I take his hand and hold it, strongly, almost hoping that he might return the grip. "When you wake up," I say out loud, not letting the idea that he might never wake up enter my mind, "you go to your love ones."

And as I look at the window for a moment, imagining those who wish to be here, the people he cares about, I finally add:

"You go to those who make you care for the rest of the world."

The End


End file.
